Valis by Philip K. Dick

[lemming]

This late PKD novel is depressing yet also quite funny at times, and not as impenetrable as some would have you believe - although I guess it all depends on how deeply you want to understand it. Some of it is hard to understand and despite being a short book it took me a few goes to even read all the way to the end, but I cannot agree with reviewers who say it makes no attempt at characterization or plot. The story problem is introduced when Dick's fictional double experiences a concentrated dose of a lot of experiences that readers, depending on luck and age, may unfortunately be able to relate to: pets die; his wife leaves him; he loses a loved one to cancer; he loses another to suicide. He also has an experience that none of his readers have had - medical information that saves his young son's life is somehow beamed into his brain. His goal becomes to understand how the apparently benign higher power that contacted him can allow so much crap to happen, and so begins Fat's exploration of "more theories than there are stars in the universe. Every day he developed a new one, more cunning, more exciting and more f***ed."

In this exploration of self-confessed crackpot theories he looks for help to characters who I found memorable and distinct, rather than, as some have suggested, mouthpieces for the author. Fat's religious friends are not much help and in fact come across as hypocrites. David the Catholic has a "teeny-bopper underage girlfriend" while the cancer-ridden Sherri makes it through to a remission by holding onto her belief that "God is healing me", yet once she recovers enough to hold down a job at her church, she seems less concerned with God than whether her colleagues are paid more than her. She also has a crush on her married priest who rejects her because "he, Larry, never mixed his social life with his business life". When Fat quotes the bible she makes a note to ask Larry whether that is one of the corrupt parts of the bible, and when he is trying to make sense of an apparent encounter with the Divine, Sherri suggests he distracts himself by studying World War Two tanks. In contrast to these unhelpful "believers", the cynical, irreligious Kevin proves to be the most help when he stumbles on a science fiction movie called "VALIS" that predates Fat's experiences yet has striking parallels to them (as well as parallels to Dick's favourite movie in real life, "The Man Who Fell to Earth").

The narrator, who identifies himself as Philip K Dick, tags along to see the movie "VALIS" with the excuse that "since they intended to see a science fiction film I felt that for professional reasons I should go along". In fact, Dick's attempt "to gain much-needed objectivity" by splitting himself into two characters, one rational and one who is going "nuts", is reminiscent of one of the theories that Horselover Fat puts in his journal: that the universe is governed by both a crazy God that imagines itself to be the only God, and a higher, rational God that is sometimes able to break through and restore some order (e.g. heal Fat's son). I am paraphrasing because quotes from Fat's journal are probably the most dense and difficult in the book, but for me their purpose is to illustrate the main character's state of mind at the point they appear in the story, so understanding every leap of logic and literary reference becomes less important than understanding that, for example, when Fat starts writing about three-eyed telepathic invaders who may or may not be our own distant descendants contacting Fat across time, it all means that he's getting desperate for answers In fact for me each excerpt from Fat's journal could have come with a footnote containing the same comment that the narrator makes when Fat comes up with a theory about the universe as a mind grieving for the loss of a woman: "If, in reading this, you cannot see that Fat is writing about himself, then you understand nothing."

For instance, the theory that the universe is a brain talking to itself in a private language nobody else can understand (even though they should be able to but have become "idiots") could be Dick expressing his own feeling of isolation while writing a book he knows is obscure towards the end of a career where he continuously attempted unsuccessfully to break into "mainstream" fiction. My favourite character, therefore, is probably the psychiatrist Dr. Stone who earns Fat's respect by demonstrating mastery of his "private language" but then restores his faith in himself by telling him "You're the authority." As Fat admits, all the talk of Gnostic scrolls from Dr. Stone, and the question of whether Dr. Stone shares any of Fat's beliefs, is less important than the shared understanding and validation. This part of the story reminded me of a newer book called "The Nuclear Age" in which a psychiatrist character helps the main character work through his nuclear war paranoia by joining in it, although it's never clear whether the psychiatrist believes what he is saying or is just taking a novel approach to therapy.

This is in contrast to the "end of act 2" part of the novel where things seem darkest, and all the supporting evidence for Fat's belief in VALIS seems to have come to worse than nothing, to something real but toxic, and Philip K Dick tells him, "Forget it... You're psychotic." Yet the - from my reading - ultimately upbeat ending seems to suggest that a little delusion, if it offers hope, is the sanest option. Kind of a journey vs. destination message - the "radiation" of being too close to the truth can make you ill, but the search for VALIS or Zebra, or even just the quest to "Go out and get laid" can keep you strong. Find your own answers, Dick seems to be saying, and if you don't like the ones you find, keep looking. Faith needn't be a set of answers, just the faith that answers exist.

[jeffallen]

Nice insights on a great book. I was obsessed with the books PKD for many, many years. I've read this one several times and probably will again someday.